SUMMARY

The Government of Syria became a one-sided actor in 2011, during the crackdown on the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. As protests spread across the country, government forces fired on demonstrators and killed civilians while carrying out arrests and searching opposition areas.

Civilian killings were at their height in the first years of the war, between 2011 and 2013, which account for most of the deaths attributed to the government. Alongside the shooting of protesters, government forces and pro-government militias moved into opposition-held and contested towns and killed or executed residents in the course of these operations.

The number of civilians recorded as victims of one-sided violence fell after 2013, but the government did not kill fewer civilians. As the war intensified, most civilians killed by the government died in shelling, airstrikes, and barrel bomb attacks on opposition-held areas, which the UCDP has recorded as part of the state-based conflict. The one-sided figures for the later war years largely covered the killings that took place away from the fighting, mainly executions and raids in areas the government had recaptured.

The Assad government was removed from power in December 2024, when rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took Damascus. The Government of Syria continued as a one-sided actor under the new authorities, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Two major episodes of violence, on the Mediterranean coast and in the south, drove the trend upward.

In March 2025, the government deployed forces to the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartous and to the central province of Hama to put down an insurgency by fighters loyal to the former government. In an episode of mass violence over a few days, government and pro-government forces killed over 1,400 Alawite civilians.

In July 2025, fighting broke out between Druze and Bedouin groups in the southern province of Suwayda, and the government moved to take control of the semi-autonomous province. In parallel to clashes between the government and Druze factions, government forces and allied factions killed Druze civilians in and around the provincial capital.

The Government of Syria first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2011, when the one-sided violence passed both the 25 and the 1000 civilian death threshold. The 25-threshold was reached on 24 March, and the 1000-threshold was passed on 10 June.